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Swift 


The  Slavery  to  Which  the 
Present  Social  System 
Reduces  All  Classes 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


fhe  Slavery  to  which  the 

Present    Social    System 

Reduces  all  Classes. 


By  MORRISON  I.  SWIFT. 


PRICI<:  FIYIv  CENTS. 


PUBLIvSIIED    RY 

THE    SOCIETY    OF    AMERICAN    SOCIALISTS 

Sy\N      FRANCISCO,      CAL. 
1896 


I'KICK  5  CliNTS. 


The   Slavery  lo  which  the 

Present    Social    System 

Reduces  All  Classes. 


By    MORRISON     I.    SWIFT. 


MODl.RN    KINDS  OF  SI.AVKRY. 


THERE  is  some  confusion  in  our  day  as  to  the  exact 
nature  of  slavery.  Americans  of  the  war  generation 
conceive  it  as  ownership  of  the  person  of  another,  so 
that  that  other  is  private  property  like  a  spade,  or  a  piece  of 
land.  But  the  unvarying  meaning  of  slave  is  not  discov- 
ered until  the  purpose  of  bodily  possession  is  followed 
through  its  historic  pha.ses.  What  never  changes  from  the 
dawn  of  tradition  until  this  date  is  the  use  made  of  the 
slave.  He  labors  for  someone  else  and  not  for  himsell  - 
this  is  slavery.  He  is  not  free  to  develop  himself  and  his 
life  for  himself;  another  thwarts  this  in  some  way:  and  if 
it  is  thwarted  in  any  way  the  consequence  is  slavery. 

There  may  be  different  degrees  of  personal  or  bodily 
freedom  in  slavery,  and  the  slave  may  be  made  to  feel  !ii^ 
slavery  more  or  less.  He  may  be  forced  to  deliver  his  la]>or 
at  the  end  of  a  whip,  under  the  seeming  of  friendship,  by 
custom,  legal  codes,  or  elaborate  kindness  codified  as  com- 
petition. All  his  actions  may  be  under  the  ma'^ter 's  in- 
spection, or  the  master  may  be  contented  with  ol)taining  a 
due  quantity  of  labor  gratuitously. 


1-3919S0 


The  elfecliveness  of  a  system  of  slavery  is  dcleruiined 
by  the  amount  of  labor  extracted  and  the  ease  of  its  extrac- 
tion. The  most  effective  form  is  that  in  which  the  slave  is 
willing  to  serve.  If  he  does  not  requiie  driving,  expense 
and  the  indulgence  of  brutality  are  saved.  Perfection  of 
slaver}'  will  show  the  slave  laboring  to  his  utmost  content- 
edly, free  from  physical  compulsion  or  supervision,  and 
intelligent  enough  to  direct  his  own  efforts. 

To  obtain  this  highly  productive,  self-running  slavery, 
the  master  would  pay  a  very  great  price,  and  certainly,  in 
exchange  for  it,  would  be  eager  to  part  with  that  authority 
over  the  body  of  his  slave  which  is  only  empty  and  irk- 
some. If  there  is  some  satisfaction  to  pride  in  being  able 
to  order  another  mortal  to  go  here  and  there,  it  is  also  a 
.sore  drain  on  the  master's  own  freedom  to  .see  that  the  other 
does  as  he  is  ordered. 

There  were  heavy,  and  it  proved,  fatal  objections  to 
the  slavery  of  bodily  ownership.  There  was  the  necessity 
of  supporting  the  personal  chattel.  If  he  died  from  neglect 
it  was  the  owner's  loss,  and  when  there  was  not  work  to 
keep  him  profitably  busy  he  lived  at  the  owner's  cost. 
There  was  the  necessity  of  mingling  with  the  slaves,  who 
were  kept  about  one  like  the  other  stock,  and  contact 
on  these  terms  was  always  degrading  and  debauching  to 
the  class  or  race  that  had  supremacy.  It  was  a  school  for 
brutality  and  arrogance  and  for  physical  vice.  Whatever 
inferiorities  the  slaves  had  would  impress  their  owners,  if 
the  children  of  the  latter  were  reared  and  tended  by  .slaves. 
Mere  proximity  to  a  really  inferior  order  damages  the  rest. 
Moreover,  just  as  a  farmer  is  very  much  the  slave  of  his 
horses  and  cows,  if  he  owned  men  he  would  be  their  slave 
in  the  same  way;  so  that  bodily  slavery  makes  the  master 
a  slave  also. 

The  .sort  of  work  to  be  done  in  modern  times  by  the 
slave  requires  great  intelligence.     The  slave  in  body  would 


not  take  interest  enoiv^li  to  k;iiii  intricate  Irndevaiul  com- 
j)licale(l  meehauical  operations.  Hence  it  has  been  neces- 
sary to  alter  the  form  of  slavery  in  order  to  have  the  slave 
develop  sufficient  intelligence  for  the  finer  work.  It  was 
requisite  also  to  provide  a  new  impulsion  for  greater  and 
more  difficult  efTort,  since  the  intelligent  would  not  exert 
themselves  under  the  goad  of  physical  force. 

At  the  same  time  the  aim  of  the  race  in  its  mf»ral  devel- 
opment has  been  personal  freedom.  Religion  and  morality 
have  lent  their  intricate  motives  and  semi-mercenary  en- 
thusiasms to  the  cause  of  personal  lil)eration.  These  two 
principles  growing  side  by  side  and  advocated  by  the  same 
persons  have  produced  some  unique  effects.  On  the  one 
hand  the  stimulus  to  production  has  been  enormously  en- 
hanced; on  the  other,  the  amount  which  th.e  slaves  retain 
of  their  own  labor  is  tragically  small.  People  own  land  or 
a  business,  but  all  that  they  have  actually  to  consume  for 
themselves  is  a  mere  bare  living. 

This  is  a  startling  result  of  fancied  libert>-.  not  yet 
much  understood.  Given  a  new  country,  prodigious  in  its 
power  and  possibilities,  and  how  does  it  happen  that  the 
farmer  is  soon  brought  to  the  point  where  he  has  to  work 
desperately  for  sheer  subsistence,  and  many  times  for- 
feits even  this?  Why  is  it  that  the  mechanic  and 
common  laborer  hardly  ever  advance  beyond  this  meagre 
subsistance  line,  while  the  store-keeper  with  moderate  cap- 
ital, wages  usually  a  .slowly  losing  struggle  with  the  in- 
exorable conditions  of  .social  survival.-*  It  is  because  their 
slavery  has  only  changed  its  outward  shape,  and  exists  for 
them  all  still  under  the  guise  and  glamor  of  serene  freedom. 

The  keenness  of  the  master  nowhere  ever  manifested 
itself  so  mightily  as  when  he  made  the  slave  conviticed  that 
he  was  free  and  that  he  was  working  for  himself.  Then  the 
master  had  harnessed  freedom  in  his  service,  and  thencefor- 
ward all  the  effort  that  a  free  man  will  put  lorth  lo  belter  hiui- 


\ 

self  l)c!'>ii.t;;ed  to  the  masler's  slock.  The  imacriiifiry  free  mnn 
now  became  ihe  imagiiKirj'  owner  of  his  produci  ivc  siibsiance : 
his  movements  were  not  hampered  at  every  turn,  and  ex- 
aspeiMiing  impositions  and  taxes  were  not  put  upon  him  in 
all  torras.  He  was  conscious  of  proprietor.>hiji,  the  sul)lim- 
est  prod  to  effort  for  the  unshackled  slave.  How  man  has 
toiled  under  this  incentive!  He  has  adorned  rocks  with  re- 
munerative verdure,  made  arid  deserts  beam  with  vegeta- 
tion, amd  converted  the  perpendicular  mountain  side  into 
a  home  and  a  harvest;  he  has  built  up  a  majestic  edifice  of 
traffic  and  commerce,  carried  iron  roadways  over  every  im- 
possible steep,  and  plundered  the  bowels  of  the  earth  of  her 
costly  substance.  And  all  this  he  has  done,  why?  Un- 
der what  indomital)le  energizing  idea  has  he  created  a  new 
earth  and  trained  terrific  nature  as  his  docile  servant? 
Why,  strangest  of  all,  to  compass  tbese  prodigies,  has  he 
gaily  dedicated  his  days  to  the  beast's  drudgery,  burnt  up 
his  life's  store  of  health  in  t'le  fierce  fever  of  a  few  hercu- 
lean years,  neglected  his  life  as  though  it  were  a  silly 
bauble,  and  entailed  upon  his  pren.ttaily  half-spent  chil- 
dren a  legacy  of  toil  and  care  outweighing  his  own?  W'liy, 
if  not  that  these  mad  men  dreamed  that  they  were  the  own- 
ers of  their  works  and  miracles?  Why,  truly,  except  that 
the.se  reckless,  adamant  pioneers  expected  to  reap  where 
they  had  sown  and  gather  where  they  had  strewn? 
It  was  the  conviction  that  they  at  last  were  masters  of 
themselves  and  full  owners  of  their  own  efforts,  that  moved 
them  to  move  the  world  and  to  buffet  life  with  an  incom- 
parable disregard. 

But  what  became  of  the  labors  which  the  hands  and 
brains  of  the  prodigious  workers  of  three  generations  reared? 
Have  those  who  created  the  industrial  fabric  kept  it?  Is  it 
the  possession  of  the  children  of  those  who  destroyed  them- 
selves to  lay  its  foundations?  This  question  had  its  answer 
long  ago.     The  accepted  fact  that  American  industry    and 


American  wealth  do  not  now  belong  to  the  American  pm- 
pie  but  to  a  small  body  who  are  not  of"  the  people  in  s\  m- 
pathy,  sentiment  or  conduct,  is  a  part  of  the  answer. 
These  owners  of  the  most  of  that  mighty  output  of  eneri^y, 
work,  life,  hope  and  national  anticipation  which  raised  Amer- 
ica up,  are  in  every  (luality  aliens  to  the  American  {ieoitle, 
despisers  of  it,  owners  of  it,  masters  of  it,  prospective  des- 
troyers of  it.  Did  they  snatch  the  wealth  of  the  jieoj^'e 
through  processes  of  liberty?  Iso,  through  slavery  disgui-  td 
as  liberty. 

But  the  answer  is  not  comjilete  until  we  study  the 
terms  on  wiiich  the  small  remaining  wealth  which  is  no- 
minally the  property  of  the  American  rank  and  file  is  held 
by  Ihtm.  Here  the  sagacity  of  the  slave  owners  blazes 
out  most  brilliantly.  The  remaining  property  which  is 
not  avowedly  owned  by  the  wealthy  is  distributed  in  small 
quantities  among  the  people,  who  are  allowed  to  think  Ihat 
they  own  it,  and  who  therefore  expend  all  their  energj-  and 
zeal  in  making  it  productive.  But  it  is  determined  by  the 
masters  just  how  much  of  the  product  of  their  toil  they  m.iy 
retain  for  their  own  consumption  and  sui)purt.  The  real 
owners  of  the  property  are  clearly  those  who  decide  this 
(ptestion,  who  determine  how  much  or  how  little  of  the 
product  the  workers  of  the  properly  can  have. 

The  sum  wanted  by  the  master  is  taken  out  of 
a  tenant  in  the  form  of  rent,  l)Ul  the  ten.uit  is  u«>t 
under  the  deception  that  he  is  owner;  he  knows  that  if  he 
expends  his  labor  in  improvemcnis  of  the  jiroperty  the 
owner  and  not  he  will  profit,  and  he  governs  himself  ac- 
cordingly. But  the  legal  or  documentary  owner  is  under 
this  delusion.  He  makes  the  improvements,  but  in  son.c 
way  which  he  has  not  heretofore  understood,  the  profits  do 
not  reach  him.  Slill  he  goes  on  and  toils  and  toils;  he 
says  to  himself:  "I'erh.ips  there  was  no  increase  from  that 
impfovemei»t,  biiue  had  ihcu-  be<:n  I  as  owm-r    mu>i    h.ive 


reaped  it";  he  thinks  that  ownership  is  an  infallible  pro- 
tector, that  an  owner  cannot  be  robbed  or  be  a  slave;  he 
addresses  his  energy  to  more  improvements,  with  no  hap- 
pier resnlts. 

One  circumstance  does  baffle  him:  the  product  is  greater; 
by  actual  weight  he  grows  more  grain  or  vegetables  or  fruit; 
but  wlien  the  year's  expenses  are  paid  nothing  more  is  left 
to  him  to  represent  this  increase  and  reward  him  for  ob- 
taining it.  It  is  even  necessary  for  him  to  put  a  mortgage 
on  his  land  to  pa}'  for  the  expenditures  which  brought  the 
increase.  Cut  how  is  the  interest  on  this  new  burden  to 
be  raised  if  he  had  no  surplus  above  his  living  before,  and 
has  not  added  to  his  income  now?  He  must  meet  the  new 
demand  by  paring  off  and  curtailing  his  living.  He  must 
work  even  harder,  and  pinch  and  squeeze,  and  take  his 
children  out  of  school  and  show  them  how  to  pinch  and 
squeeze  and  work  like  grown  people,  and  the  occasional 
days  of  journey  and  relaxation  which  kept  alive  the  spirits 
and  strength  of  all  must  be  given  up. 

For  whom  are  he  and  his  children  and  his  wife  pinch- 
ing and  squeezing  and  working,  since  all  they  get  out  of 
it  for  themselves  is  the  privilege  of  this  endless  and  fatal 
working  and  economizing?  Who  took  the  increase  of  the 
product  from  all  his  improvements  and  finally  compelled 
the  mortgage  to  be  placed?  There  is  no  such  complication 
to  this  inquiry  as  should  blind  the  agi  iculturi.st  to  his  a!)- 
solute  slavery. 

11 .     1'Akm]>:r-slavkry. 

The  agriculturist  is  obliged  to  satisfy  three  claims  on 
his  produce  before  he  arrives  at  his  own  sole  remnant. 
The.se  three  claims  represent  his  three  masters  and  the  real 
owners  of  him  and  his  land.  He  has  to  raise  and  prepare 
the  product  for  market,  and  for  this  purpose  he  requires 
material  and  machines.     Most   of  these    articles    are   now 


manufactured  bj'  trusts,  and  the  farmer  cannot  obtain  them 
except  by  paying  a  monopoly  price.  These  abnormal  prices 
are  the  trusts'  notification  that  if  he  desires  to  raise  grain 
or  fruit  he  must  give  thera  whatever  quantity  of  this  fruit 
or  grain  they  may  determine  upon,  for  the  privilege  of  doing 
so.  Under  this  implacable  compulsion  are  the  trusts  master 
or  is  he  master?  Does  he  have  his  own,  what  his  labor 
creates?     Is  he  free,  or  is  he  a  slave  of  the  trusts? 

After  discharging  this  forced  tribute  he  has  next  to 
face  the  railroads.  "These  are  our  freight  charges,"  says 
this  set  of  masters.  "But  they  are  extortionate,"  protests 
the  dismayed  farmer.  "If  I  pay  them  I  shall  have  but  a 
miserable  remainder  for  all  my  labor."  But  he  pays  them, 
for  his  only  choice  is  to  burn  his  grain  or  let  his  fruit  rot. 
(If  he  sells  his  product  to  an  agent  at  his  door,  this  agent 
has  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  railroads,  out  of  the  farm- 
er's product;  that  is,  the  farmer  pays  the  bill  through  the 
agent.)  Thus  the  landowner  temporarily  releases  himself 
from  another  master,  by  parting  with  a  second  quantity  of 
his  produce  and  labor,  to  which  the  master  has  no  claim 
but  his  power  to  refuse  shipment  to  a  market;  and  this 
power  under  the  circumstances  is  almighty. 

Lastly,  the  bemastered  producer  meets  the  purchasers 
of  his  product.  They  are  a  combination  or  "Trust"  of 
persons  who  buy  all  the  fruit  or  grain  of  a  vast  section  and 
establish  the  price  they  will  pay  to  the  growers  arbitrarily. 
They  estimate  how  much  can  be  taken  out  of  the  growers 
without  too  serious  resentment,  and  they  fix  the  price  by 
that  standard.  If  they  are  sometimes  private  buyers  they 
recognize  the  importance  of  a  private  understanding  among 
themselves  to  regulate  the  purchasing  price.  Now  the 
farmer  or  rancher  may  dislike  this  situation  very  much. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  so  offensive  to  him  that,  in  preference  to 
accepting  a  rate  which  he  knows  to  be  undisguised  rob- 
bery, he  will  store  his  product  in  a  warehouse,  and    try  l)y 


\v  litiii'^  tor  a  time  of  scarcity  to  force  his  masters  to  fairer 
terms;  but  unless  the  warehouse  or  elevator  is  his  own,  he 
p  lys  storage  and  does  not  know  but  the  owners  of  it  are 
in  secret  connivance  with  the  syndicate  of  buyers  to  wrest 
from  him  in  one  way  what  they  cannot  get  in  another. 

And  so  the  the  landowner  comes  out  of  these  three  en- 
counters with  just  nothing  as  a  balance  in  his  favor  from 
the  year's  exertions— nothing  except  the  exalting  con- 
sciousness of  his  liberty.  For  even  at  this  last  station  be- 
fore despair  the  farmer  will  doubtless  be  emphatic  that  he 
is  a  free  man,  and  will  light  up  his  grizzled  and  toil  worn 
countenance  with  some  poetic  early-July  reflections  on  the 
equality  which  reigns  in  this  blessed  republic,  meaning 
some  mystical  supermundane  and  mental  equality;  and  not 
the  homely  and  familiar  equalities  of  poverty  and  wealth,  of 
aging  excess  of  work  and  gorgeous  excess  of  idleness,  of 
mortgage  and  foreclosure  and  common  labor  and  possible 
tramping.  He  is  an  owner,  and  the  magic  of  owning  is 
that  although  you  do  not  live  as  well  as  a  chattel  slave, 
but  work  as  hard  as  ten  of  them,  and  see  your  toil  appro- 
priated by  others,  and  have  a  worry  at  your  heart  which 
the  chattel  never  dreamed  of,  you  are  a  free  man. 

But  in  sober  reality  could  any  one  be  more  of  a  slave 
than  he?  And  are  not  those  who  take  his  substance  and 
labor  so  delicately  and  deftly  that  he  hardly  knows  to 
whom  it  has  gone,  the  very  princes  and  paragons  of  mas- 
ters compared  with  those  unskilled  possessors  of  chattel 
humanity  whose  methods  were  open,  rough-handed  and 
offensive?  Modern  slavery  is  a  dazzluig  development  of 
of  finesseaud  fine  art,  flattering  and  fooling  its  victims,  and 
sometimes  even  moving  them  to  be  active  participants, 
vociferous  and  fanatical,  in  their  own  plucking  and  skin- 
ning. 

The  perfect  and  ideal  liberty  which  they  have  won,  is 
to  be  ro1)bed  in  a  businesslike  and  absolutely  polite  manner. 


And  certainly  it  is  a  large  advance  to  be  robbed  respectluUy, 
and,  looking  back  on  the  cuffs  and  kicks  and  stripes  and  vi- 
gorous insults  which  the  old  time  slave  suffered,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  present  slave  experiences  a  glow  of  gra- 
titude, each  time  he  bows  to  the  master's  exactions,  because 
the  orders  are  couched  in  gentlemanly  language  and  are 
ufjt  spiced  with  buffets  and  a  broken  head. 

It  would  have  astoumled  the  ancients  had  they  been 
assured  that  a  time  could  come  when  a  social  sj'stem  would 
emerge  competent,  to  train  slaves  with  such  strong  convic- 
tions of  their  freedom,  that  they  would  become  their  own 
keepers  and  set  their  masters  free  from  the  ordinary  res[)on- 
sil)ilities  of  maintaining  then  in  l)ondage,  by  aiding  to  keep 
themselves  there.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  the  Spartan  helots 
or  the  American  negroes  so  confused  over  their  own  con- 
dition as  to  oppose  themselves  against  those  wIkj  might 
endeavor  to  .set  them  free,  and  even  to  take  up  arms  to 
preserve  their  own  slavery;  and  this  incredible  phenomenon 
it  has  been  re.served  for  tli.'  latter-day  slave   to   contribute. 

Wherever  the  farmer  lifts  his  voice  against  striking 
workmen  in  cities,  towns,  or  on  railroads,  he  is  locking  on 
his  own  handcuffs.  Wherever  he  endures  a  magistrate  or  ad- 
ministation  that  employs  the  armed  mercanariesand  the  mer- 
cenary courts  of  the  country  to  defeat  the  protests  of  the 
laboring  classes — fellow  slaves  of  the  farmer — he  is  his 
masters'  guard  and  sustainer.  When  he  draws  an  imagi- 
nary line  between  his  interests  ami  tho.se  of  the  farm  labo- 
rers who  work  for  him,  and  another  between  himself  and 
tne  wage  earners  of  the  cities,  he  is  making  ficticious  .se- 
parations and  divisions  which  neutralize  the  strength  of 
the  whole  slave  class  and  keep  them  as  safely  bound  and 
innocuous  as  if  they  were  in  a  dungeon.  While  the  western 
railroad  men  struggled  against  their  masters,  the  railway 
m.'.gnates,  in  1S94,  there  were  farmers  who  declared  that 
the  strikers  ought  to  be  shot  d<nvn  as  enemies  of  the    conn- 


10 

tly;  tarmef-slave^i  ot"  these  very  taiiroacl  magnates,  wlioni 
the  railroads  have  brought  well  n\>^h  to  l)eggary,  but  who 
nevertheless  consider  the  railroads  the  country,  and  their 
selfish  private  interests  as  masters  as  identical  with  the 
national  interests.  They  were  not  able  to  perceive  that 
the  strikers  in  their  noble  contest  for  general  emancipation 
were  fighting  for  the  liberation  of  the  farmer  as  well  as  for 
their  own;  and  th^  farmers  therefore  threw  away  a  transcen- 
dent opportunity  to  begin  to  cast  their  masters  oif.  If  the 
farmers  had  then  held  mass  meetings  in  every  township  and 
county  in  the  whole  union,  to  thunder  in  stentorian  tones 
against  the  common  slavery,  that  conflict  would  have 
marked  a  memorable  victory  of  slaves  over  slave  owners. 

The  ancient  slave  holder  would  not  have  dreamed  of 
endowing  his  slave  with  the  vote,  for  the  vote  affords  the 
most  direct  road  to  liberty.  The  depth  of  mental  enslave- 
ment of  that  people  which  holds  in  its  hand  the  simplest  and 
surest  means  of  obtaining  freedom,  but  never  uses  it  tor 
that  purpose,  can  only  be  apprehended  by  studying  mod- 
ern democracies  of  the  type  of  our  republic.  The  masters  of 
the  modern  slave  regime  can  trust  their  slaves  with  this  im- 
plement of  freedom;  and  the  slaves  use  it  faithfully  at  allthe 
elections  for  the  p2rpetual  solidifying  of  slavery  institutions. 
If  rifles  had  been  presented  to  the  negroes  in  black  slavery 
days  with  permission  to  use  them  as  they  plea.sed,  it  would 
not  have  displayed  so  great  confidence  as  leaving  the  ballot 
with  the  white  slave  implies.  The  old  southern  woman 
Chloe,  as  the  readers  of  Aldrich  know,  had  her  mind  made 
up  about  the  people  in  the  '•Norf"  who  might  attempt  to 
free  the  .slaves,  and  announced  with  flashing  eyes,  "if  any 
of  dem  mean  whites  tried  to  get  her  away  from  Marster,  she 
was  jes' g wine  to  knock  'em  on  de  head  wid  a  gourd!" 
and  this  is  the  spirit  in  which  the  average  voting  white  has 
thus  far  appreciated  his  possibilities  of  liberty.  We  may  be 
confident  that  the  popular  ballot  will  not  be  molested  while 


IX 

tlie  slave  is  in  this  loynl  mood:  htit  if  he  were  toshowsign? 
of  applying  the  ballot  to  dethrone  his  masters,  there  would 
would  ])e  a  movement  on  their  jjart  to  take  the  popular 
power  out  of  the  ballot.  From  the  side  of  the  slave  own- 
ers, the  concession  of  the  free  vote  to  a  not  too  keenly 
wide-awake  and  intelligent  i)eo])lc'  has  been  a  prudent 
policy;  for  it  beguiles  them  into  stronger  convictions  that 
they  are  free,  since  they  reason  that  such  a  revolutionary 
instrument  would  not  be  accorded  to  slaves. 

In  no  time  or  state  would  the  slave  fight  for  his  own 
slavery  if  he  knew  that:  he  were  doing  so.  Hut  the  owner- 
ship of  property  has  ])cen  represented  as  freedcmi  so  long 
and  insistently  that  all  of  the  best  and  highest  aspirations 
for  independence  and  personal  and  national  development 
have  woven  their  roots  with  those  of  possession,  until  they 
seem  now  identical,  and  to  tell  a  man  that,  although  he- 
may  be  owner  of  considerable  substance,  he  is  a  slave,  ap- 
l>ears  to  him  untrue  and  even  socially  disintegrating  and 
trea.sonable. 

The  identity  of  property-ownership  with  liberty  is  the 
fallacy  which  is  the  prop  and  safety  of  modern  slavery.  It 
is  true  that  one  who  has  no  property  is  most  obviously  a 
slave,  aiid  it  has  therefore  been  over  hastily  inferred  that 
the  counter  proposition  must  be  sound,  and  that  whoever 
owns  projierty  is  not  a  sla\e.  Hut  the  reality  is  that  un- 
der modern  social  conditions  the  small  projHjrty  owner  is 
the  slave  of  the  large  owner.  And  the  secret  of  the  stabi- 
lity of  modern  slavery  is  the  ai)parent  similarity  of  the 
slave's  condition  to  that  of  his  master.  Ivach  has  property, 
and  as  the  m.ister  is  made  free  by  his  jirojK'rly,  how  can  it 
be  that  the  other  is  enslaved  by  his.'  In  fact,  not  only  the 
inten.se  instincts  that  have  ari.sen  out  of  the  aci|uisition, 
jx)sse.ssion  and  transmission  o!  property,  but  the  plexus  of 
customs,  u.sages.  laws  and  relations  that  encircle  and  pro- 
tect it,  have  been   taken    advantage    of   and    wrought    into 


12 

effective  instruments  for  enslaving  the  small  owners.     Pro- 
perty has  developed  into  a  sj'stera  of  slavery. 

111.      THE  SELKCTION  OF  SLAVE-MASTERS  UNDER  LIBERTY. 

It  becomes  vital  to  know  by  what  system  the  masters 
are  selected,  for,  if  a  people  is  not  spirited  enough  to  be 
free  from  masters,  it  is  well  for  it  to  have  the  best  sort. 
The  manipulation  of  property,  which  is  the  one  requisite 
of  mastership,  is  a  special  power  which  some  are  born  to, 
others  obtain  by  training  and  experiment,  and  the  major- 
ity do  not  acquire  at  all,  or  even  seek,. being  contented  sim- 
ply to  produce  property.  It  is  not  in  itself  an  important  or 
.significant  proficiency,  and  if  pressed  far  is  contemptible; 
and  it  is,  from  any  standard,  but  a  faulty  and  unnatural 
index  to  the  quality,  intelligence  or  character  of  its  owner. 
Hence  it  does  not  select  for  masters  the  largeminded,  best 
men,  who  would  employ  their  talents  for  the  good  and  de- 
velopment of  their  slaves,  but  men  qualified  mainly  by  a 
certain  knack,  which  even  dis(iualifies  them  for  the  higher 
uses.  The  best  would  positively'  refuse  to  be  masters. 
Nor  are  the  best  even  who  would  consent  to  be  masters 
chosen,  for  they  would  use  their  powers  to  develope  the 
whole  also;  but  it  is  rather  the  worst,  who  use  their  master- 
ship so  far  as  they  dare  wholly  for  themselves.  For  a  man, 
to  be  a  manipulator  of  great  wealth  and  acquire  a  fortune, 
must  be  without  soul,  since  the  acquisition  of  wealth  is 
always  the  deprivation  of  others. 

If  we  made  ability  to  turn  well  in  a  circus  the  ground 
for  choosing  our  masters  we  should  be  laughed  at,  for  peo- 
ple would  rightly  say,  "What  has  that  to  do  with  wi.se  master- 
ship over  slaves,  or  with  any  right  to  own  slaves  whatever?" 
And  we  should  join  in  the  laigh  ourselves  at  the  thought 
ot  those  who  could  contort  their  frames  best  presuming  to 
conduct  themselves  as  masters  of  those  who  could  not  turn 
at  all,  and  drawing  compulsory  tribute  out  of  them.  Why 
then  is  the  laugh  not  equally  against  us  when  we  submit  to 


the  same  ridiculous  pretensions  in  those  who  can  merely 
turn  and  twist  property  better  than  other  men,  instend  <.f 
twisting  their  bodies  more  wonderfully? 

Mastership,  or  great  wealth,  is  the  gauge  we  have  lor 
determining  those  who  are  to  be  given  opportunities  Tor 
development;  for  great  wealth  confers  the  means  of  educa- 
tion, leisure  and  travel,  whereas  want  of  large  property 
limits  and  prevents  development.  By  this  criterion  the 
least  fitted  are  supplied  with  the  means  and  opportunities 
for  development,  which  they  abuse  and  waste;  and  those 
with  native  powers  competent  for  the  highest  perfections 
are  obliged  to  spend  their  daj-s  grinding  forth  the  tribute 
for  these  worthless  masters,  and  to  desolate  their  own  di- 
vine gifts.  We  should  not  wonder  at  the  almost  complete 
dearth  of  fine  men  and  women  in  human  society,  at  the  low 
general  average,  or  at  the  base  contentment  of  the  many 
under  the  reign  and  saddle  of  the  few. 

IV.       FREKDOM    TO    CHOO.SIC    TH)-;    I'I,.\Ci:    TO    STARVE. 

But  we  ought  to  follow  the  idea  of  liberty  a  little 
farther,  to  see  how  it  ends,  and  the  kind  of  motive  that  is 
ultimately  furnished  to  the  .slave  to  cling  tohis  little  property 
and  work  to  death  for  the  masters;  what  punishment  await.s 
him  if  he  loses  it,  and  always  hangs  above  the  wage-slave 
if  he  has  ill-luck.  Thislil)erty  has  been  su1)tly  bereft  of  its 
substance  and  does  not  embrace  even  the  right  to  life  on  the 
lowest  and  most  degraded  terms.  As  far  as  concerns  the 
individual  without  belongings  it  is  the  liberty  to  convey 
him.self  from  place  to  place  at  will  upon  public  pro])ert>-, 
such  as  roads  and  parks.  It  provides  no  way  for  the  earn- 
ing of  bread  when  private  persons  do  not  ofier  the  opportu- 
nity. The  freedom  thus  far  won  is  the  freedom  to  choose 
the  place  on  the  public  highways  where  one  prefers  to 
starve.  If  in  this  case  one  chooses  to  live  rather  than  to 
starve,    there    are     egregious     penalties    and    conilitious. 


H 

Evefy  sentimefit  of  de£!:r:idation  is  associated  with  the 
the  poor  house;  its  entire  aspect  is  oftensive  ami 
humiliating;  it  is  made  barren  and  dreary  from  princi- 
ple; one  who  enters  it  is  branded  for  contempt  hence- 
forth; in  many  places  the  recipient  of  its  heartless  hospital- 
ity is  robbed  of  his  only  remaining  possession,  political 
standing.  The  ideal  of  personal  freedom,  which  the  race 
has  exalted,  has  nourished  in  all  breasts  an  aversion  to  de- 
pendence and  charity,  and  the  poorhouse  is  the  fleshless  em- 
bodiment of  these  ignominies.  It  may  seem  malicious  to 
bury  under  disgrace  those  to  whom  the  avenues  of  earning 
are  sternly  closed,  but  society  has  chosen  this  way  and  sees 
neither  the  stultifying  humor  nor  the  villainy  of  it.  A  man 
that  wants  to  earn  is  not  a  pauper  because  he  has  nothing 
and  can  find  no  way  to  earn. 

The  nominal  personal  freedom  which  is  prized  and 
cried  for  so  vehemently  ends  in  equivalence  to  starvation 
or  the  poorhouse,  in  death  or  life  more  bitter  than  the 
felon's,  because  it  is  undeserved.  There  can  be  no  freedom 
until  a  man  is  free  to  live  and  not  to  die.  Until  no  casual- 
ties or  chicanery  can  drive  liim  to  these  abys.ses  his  freedom 
is  a  humlnig.  The  value  of  freedom  resides  in  the  oppor- 
tunity it  gives  to  be  something  that  is  worth  being  free. 
Nothing  should  be  called  freedom  which  does  not  ensure 
the  libtrty  to  exercise  one's  powers  in  production  etpi  illy 
with  (jthers,  and  to  enjoy  equally  the  results  ofth.it  effort. 

There  is  at  present  a  counter  tendency,  both  to  the 
movement  to  increase  the  intelligence  of  the  slaves  and  to 
avowing  them  freedom  of  acticm.  The  extreme  division  of 
labor  does  away  with  the  need  of  superior  intelligence  in 
the  oierative,  and  an  inclination  is  con.sec[uently  manifest- 
ing itself  to  let  him  sink.  The  personal  freedom  which 
had  been  allowed  him  is  ulso  being  curtailed,  as  ts  .shown 
in  the  accumulating  laws  and,  'precedents'  against  strikers. 


15 

How  afe  these  statements  pfoved  hy  the  social  condi- 
tions of  California?  HveryoJie  knows  there  is  no  state  in 
the  Union  where  the  wage-earner  is  in  such  an  evil  pass  as 
here.  vServility  is  written  all  c)\cr  his  life.  He  sleeps  in  a 
wagon,  barn,  tent,  or  the  corner  of  a  field.  His  hearth 
and  home  are  the  blanket  which  he  carries  strai)ped  to  his 
back.  As  soon  as  he  is  out  of  work  he  moves  on,  his  home 
becomes  the  highway,  and  he  is  dubbed  tramp.  Worst  of 
it  is,  work  is  out  of  reach  of  many  ot  these  tramps,  but 
they  are  never  out  of  reach  of  the  contempt  which  is  re- 
served for  those  who  cannot  find  work.  The  working  man 
is  always  a  begger,  either  for  work  or  bread.  His  position 
is  degraded.  The  tramps  of  the  country  must  b2  regarded 
as  an  army  of  men  under  drill  to  hate  society  and  some  day 
to  fight  it.  It  was  the  unemployed  who  carried  the  day  for 
popular  liberty  twice  during  the  French  Revolution. 
Kvery  common  workman,  every  skilled  workman  in  fact, 
is  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  tramp.  If  not  actually 
walking  to-day  he  may  be  to-morrow. 

The  rancher  looks  at  the  workman  or  tramp  and  says, 
I  am  higher  and  better  and  freer  than  thou.  Hut  I  ques- 
tion if  the  tramp  is  not  higher  and  happier  than  that  poor 
rancher.  There  are  hardly  any  ranchers  in  California  who 
are  not  anxious  to  sell  out  and  get  out.  This  is  not  evi- 
dence of  happiness.  There  is  a  patch,  or  plaster,  or  what- 
ever the  mortgage  may  be,  upon  almost  every  ranch  in 
some  parts;  and,  as  the  ranchers  say,  when  it  is  once  on  I 
do  not  see  how  it  can  be  got  off.  The  ominous  time  has 
arrived  when  it  is  more  profitable  to  .some  ranchers  to  let 
their  fruit  rot  than  to  hire  help  to  pluck  it,  so  insatiable 
have  the  railroads  and  miildlemen,  who  live  like  nabobs  !)y 
writing  with  their  pens,  become.  The  pen  is  at  lea-.t 
mightier  than  the  plough.  "There  is  work  enough  to  be 
done,"  one  rancher  observed,  six^aking  of  the  tramping  aji- 
plicants  for  work,  "but  the  trouble  is  to    get    any  thing  t«) 


t6 

pay  for  it  with."  And  this  is  the  heart  of  the  evil.  The 
rancher  is  working  himself  old  because  he  cannot  afford  to 
hire,  and  the  country  is  full  of  idle  men  living  as  they  may, 
while  the  wealth  which  these  two  factors  should  have  is 
drained  off  to  the  cities  and  the  rich;  and  the  wealth  they 
would  produce  it  allowed  freedom  to  cooperate  and  have 
their  own,  is  lost.  The  .slaves  toil  and  worry  and  die, 
and  the  masters  laze  and  luxuriate  and  travel.  Will  the 
towns  dependent  on  the  trade  of  the  ranchers  and  work- 
ingmen  thrive? 

For  a  momentary  respite,  and  in  the  hope  of  discovering 
a  profit  for  themselves  somewhere,  the  ranchers  have  turned 
to  the  employment  of  Japanese  labor.     Thirty-five   cents 
a  day,  and  the  Japane.se   boarding    themselves,  is  one  of 
the  popular  prices.     Can  these  ranchers  not  .see  that  the 
masters  will  immediately  take  what  is  thus   saved,  out   of 
them?     Nor  can  even  the  Japanese  live    on  these  prices. 
We  are  familiar  with  the  wage  slave,  but    this    discus- 
sion has  shown  us  that  we  .should  also  speak  of  the    farmer 
and  rancher  .slave;  and  I  am  sorry  that  I  have  not   time    to 
show  how  the  store-keeping  class  is  in  bondage  also,    com- 
pelled to  toady  and  cringe  for  trade,  and  pay  its  tribute    to 
the  railroads  and  trusts,  and  squirm  and  wriggle  and  writhe 
to  keep  out  of  financial  perdition.     It  has  to  bribe  the  mas- 
ter, capitalists  to  corue  and  start  industries  in  its  towns  and 
cities  .so  that  it  may  live.     The  New  York  "Post"  has  ju.st 
announced  that   "Citizens  of  Thomp.sonville,  Conn.,  have 
contributed  $17,000  in  cash,  a   valuable    lot    of  land,  and 
some  $4,500  worth  of  other    property  to  a  Western  bicycle 
company  to  induce  it  to  locate    its    factory    there.     On    its 
part  the  company  agrees  to  put  up  a  factory  building  co.st- 
ing  $20,000,  and  to  employ  as  many  as  150  hands  for  three 
vears."'    Tlie  stores  of  every  American    town    are    in    the 
same    needy    and     pleading     condition.       A    Los    Gatos 
paper  tells    the    whole    story    in    twenty    words.      "Los 


I? 

Gatos  wants  several  stnall  factories  that  will  employ 
Americans,  intelligent,  honorable  and  progressive,  who 
will  make  their  homes  here  and  support  our  stores,  schools 
and  churches."  The  uses  of  the  laboring  class  were  never 
so  honestly  declared.  Their  mission  is  to  support  stores, 
schools  and  churches — for  other  social  classes.  As  to  the 
churches,  they  do  not  care  for  them;  as  to  the  .schools  they 
can  not  long  attend  them;  and  as  to  the  stores,  of  what  in- 
terest is  it  to  the  working  class  to  keep  up  factories  for  the 
sake  of  supporting  stores?  Was  the  laboring  class  invented 
and  created  to  support  stores? 

Viewing  these  distre.ssing  phenomena  of  our  times,  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  there  will  never  l)e  any  great  prosperity 
again  for  the  American  farmer  or  store-keeper  until  they 
free  themselves  from  slavery  by  abolishing  the  capitalist 
masters. 

V.      WAGK-SLAVKRY. 

The  wage-slave  is  a  distinct  figure  in  the  economic 
literature  of  the  day,  and  a  far  more  distinct  figure  out  of 
it.  No  trick  of  apparent  ownership  deceives  him  into 
thinking  that  he  is  not  a  slave.  He  is  a  cipher  in  life,  un- 
loved, unknown,  unwanted.  He  belongs  to  the  world  of 
gloom  and  dirt  and  disch.irge.  Who  cares  what  ha]iiiened 
to  him  when  discharged?  No  one.  Does  any  one  care 
that  Kdward  I).  Flavin,  a  former  laundry  driver  in  San 
Franci.sco,  committed  suicide  day  before  yesterday,  by 
cutting  his  tin  oat  from  ear  to  ear?  Or  -hat  August  Schott- 
ler,  a  miller,  committed  suicide  yesterday  by  .sending  a  bul- 
let through  his  brain^  I  have  not  heard  of  any  Ixuly  who 
is  worried  by  these  daily  suicides.  IJ.ith  of  the.se  men,  who 
are  merely  random  sam]>les  of  the  wage-slave  suicides, 
were  desiiondent  unto  death  ])ecause  thev  had  i)cen  out  of 
emplovment    for  sdiue  liiuc 


i8 

To-morrow,  and  day  afler,  and  all  the  coming  winter, 
and  all  next  year,  there  will  be  more  suicides,  because  the 
rich  have  locked  up  the  social  pantry  and  put  the  kej'  in 
their  pockets.  And  who  will  care?  Nobody.  It  is  too 
much  trouble  to  care. 

We  talk  of  hell!  This  is  hell.  The  social  table  is 
spread  with  wealth  and  abounding  food.  We  let  the  free 
workman,  free  of  work,  approach  to  look  at  it.  He  is  starv- 
ing, and  the  only  things  between  him  and  the  groaning  board 
are  a  plate-glass  window  and  a  policeman.  He  cuts  his 
throat.  Society  sits  down  to  its  daily  feast  while  the  work- 
man's  body  is  taken  to  the  morgue.  This  is  hell  improved. 
The  heli  we  had  waited  initil  a  man  was  dead  before  it  ap- 
plied the  irons;  the  hell  we  have  lights  up  the  instruments 
for  the  living.  The  old  hell  tortured  a  man  for  sins;  the 
new  one  does  not  care  whether  he  is  a  sinner  or  not,  but 
only  requires  that  he  shall  be  a  working  man.  W^e  have 
abolished  the  fabled  hell;  the  omnipresent  social  hell 
will  abolish  us  if  we  do  not  put  out  its  raging  and  real 
tires. 

This  state  of  affairs  is  highly  perfected  .savagery.  The 
forest  of  the  dead  in  iVshantee,  where  the  ground  is  paved 
with  the  skulls  of  the  king's  victims,  cannot  rival  it.  Civ- 
ilization stands  aghast  before  such  unimaginable  Ashantee 
atrocities — excelled  only  by  its  own  atrocities  upon  those 
who  commit  the  crime  of  working  for  a  living.  Cruelty  is 
not  cruelty  when  applied  to  them.  There  are  more  skulls 
of  suicide  workingmen  in  this  country  than  the  A.shantee 
king  ever  bleached.  And  we  kill  in  the  new  world  with  .so 
much  less  scandal!  We  have  our  victims  quietly  killing 
themselves,  and  then  we  are  not  to  blame  for  it. 

I  should  think  the  conscience  of  America  would  rai.se 
a  whirlwind  over  this  social  savagery  that  would  annihi- 
late the  new  hell.  Kut  where  is  the  American  conscience? 
It  has  not  been  heard  from  since  the  war,  and  many  fear  that 


19 

it  IS  lost.  It  is  not  as  big  as  a  dollar,  and  if  it  saw  two  or 
three  billion  dollars  like  our  rich  men,  it  would  fly  to  some 
holy  cyclone  cellar  for  protection. 

But  I  should  think  these  daily  starvation  executions  of 
workingmen  would  drive  the  working  classes  to  a  state  of 
uncontrollable  intelligence.  They  ought  not  to  leave  so- 
ciety as  it  is  one  day.  Which  one  of  those  now  working 
will  be  out  of  work  for  months  to-morrow?  Will  he  have 
to  sacrifice  himself,  perhaps  his  children  too,  on  the  altar 
of  suicide?  When  one  workingman  is  obliged  to  take  his 
life  through  starvation,  it  is  suicide  of  the  whole  working 
cla.ss.  And  society  would  not  care  if  all  committed  suicide, 
except  that  it  would  be  temporarily  inconvenient,  until  more 
were  grown  to  do  the  vulgar  work.  If  all  workingmen 
should  commit  suicide  of  one  accord,  it  would  solve  the 
labor  <iuestion. 

But  I  can  conceive  the  workinvnnan  in  a  hen/.y  of  in- 
telligence using  the  ballot  on  the  man  who  has  the  wealth 
and  will  not  give  him  work,  insteail  of  using  the  bullet  on 
himself.  The  daily  suicide  of  the  working  classes  would 
not  be  a  useless  loss  of  life  if  it  taught  those  classes  that 
life  is  better  than  death,  food  than  suicide,  ])lenly  than 
poverty,  liberty  than  slavery;  and  that  they  can  have  every 
one  of  these  preferable  things  by  using  the  ballot  for  them- 
selves rather  than  for  those  who  starve  and  enslave  them. 

Society'  should,  however,  perform  the  obsequies  of  hu- 
manity. If  it  has  nothing  but  suiciile  to  offer  to  the  work- 
ingman who  cannot  get  work,  it  should  not  usher  him  into 
the  eternal  silence  with  unnecessary  suflTering.  Kee]i- 
ing  a  vicliiU  a  vakc  unlilhe<lies  is  said  to  be  a  fearful  mode 
of  execution,  sleep  all  the  time  being  so  near  and  tantaliz- 
ing. And  it  is  likewise  said  that  to  die  of  thirst  with  a 
cool  stream  running  before  one's  eyes  is  an  extpiisite  an<l 
.si.cresslnl  torture.  But  all  th.it  society  ret|uires  of  tlu"  or- 
dinary workingman  out  <»f   uoik   is    that    Ik-    sh.»ll    simply 


20 

die.  There  is  no  general  desire  that  his  sufferings  shall 
be  rendered  acute.  It  seems  an  uncalled  for  affliction  to 
let  him  die  with  visible  plenty  all  about  him.  Even  the  life 
of  the  murderer  is  now  taken  as  tenderly  as  science  can,  and 
the  workingman  is  not  worse  than  the  murderer.  So  that 
at  least  the  humane  ought  to  agitate  for  an  American 
Siberia,  whither  the  unemployed  wage-.slaves  could  be  taken 
to  commit  suicide  untantalized,   without  any  food  in  sight. 

People  who  are  free  to  live  do  not  have  to  commit 
suicide  because  they  can  find  no  way  to  live.  The  only 
inalienable  right  that  the  working  people  seem  to  have  won 
for  themselves  is  the  right  of  suicide;  and  the  only  indis- 
putable freedom  they  have  is  the  freedom  of  choice  between 
starvation  and  suicide. 

But  some  professional  bulls  of  our  civilization  in  the 
market  of  time,  like  to  say  that  the  wage  workman  is  not 
a  slave,  because  he  can  become  free.  As  one  word-broker 
describes  it,  "We  hear  a  good  deal  about  'wage-slavery' — 
a  recent  discovery  of  alien  'labor  leaders.'  There  is  no 
such  thing.  In  neither  kind  nor  degree  does  the  wage 
system  resemble  slavery.  What  kind  of  slavery  would 
that  be  from  which,  by  industry,  skill  or  education,  the 
slave  could  free  himself  and  become  a  master?" 

This  is  asking  how  a  man  who  may  die  can  be  alive 
while  he  is  alive.  Political  industry  may  make  a  man 
president,  but  he  is  not  president  until  he  becomes  such. 
Besides,  it  has  been  a  part  of  many  systems  of  slavery  that 
the  slaves  could  work  themselves  free  or  buy  themselves 
free.  While  they  were  slaves,  however,  they  were  slaves, 
less  than  men,  half  men  half  beasts. 

But  how  many  slaves  ever  won  the  diploma  of  free- 
dom? And  how  many  wage-slaves  ever  become  masters? 
From  the  arguments  that  are  popular  witli  the  learned  and 
great  it  would  ap;)ear  that  if  one  slave  in  ten  thousand  ob- 
tains freedom  on  the  verge  of  death,  it  ought  to  satisfy  the 


ten  thonsaiKl  with  slavery,  liitl  lliis  leanie<l  (lein«»ii>.ira- 
ti(^ti  is  not  so  conviiicin^^  when  we  apj^ly  it  in  another  way. 
If  we  suppose  that  sociel>'  were  to  lianp^  all  bat  one  in  ten 
thousand  capitalists  and  learned  men,  on  the  j^round  that  if 
one  remaiued  unhanged  it  would  be  a  compensation  to  the 
rest  for  their  disagreeable  experience,  would  the  hanged 
ones  acquiesce  in  the  measure?  And  should  working  slaves 
who  will  never  be  free  consent  to  slavery  because  a  fellow 
slave  occasionally  mounts  to  freedom? 

There  is  another  side  of  it  all,  too.  What  a  training 
slavery  is  for  citizenship  and  manhood!  If  you  train  a  man 
as  a  slave  in  the  beginning,  he  will  be  a  slave  all  his  days. 
Plate  him  with  dense  gold,  lard  him  with  social  politeness, 
take  him  to  church  for  electrical  baths  ot  morality,  let  him 
found  a  university  to  wash  away  his  crimes,  marry  hi'> 
daughter  to  a  prince  in  order  to  sanctify  capitalism  with 
feudalism,  let  him  dine  with  the  Queen  of  Ivngland  or  the 
Sultan  of  Turkey  for  culture,  and  he  will  die  the  slave  that 
he  lived.  If  we  .should  train  a  man  as  a  monkey  or  a  dog, 
after  life  would  not  untrain  him,  although  it  were  spent 
with  President  Cleveland  or  the  Prince  of  Wales.  Over 
his  beautiful  collar  of  monument  white  we  should  see  the 
canine  teeth  and  the  busy  simian  eye. 

But  we  vastly  chuckle  with  ourselves  over  the  inven- 
tion of  the  self-made  man,  who  has  come  up  through  scour- 
ing hardship  to  mastership.  Why  we  should  like  him  or 
laud  him  is  the  mystery,  and  in  honesty  we  do  not.  He  likes 
himself,  and,  being  master,  comi>els  us  to  act  as  if  we  liked 
him.  Of  course  he  treats  the  rest  of  us  as  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  be  treated  while  he  was  making  himself.  ICvery- 
body  was  his  enemy  then,  trying  not  to  let  him  make  him- 
self, for  his  success  stood  in  the  way  of  their  ])lans  of  .self- 
making.  This  bristling  o]>position  made  him  hard,  and, 
if  he  overcame  it,  made  him  a  dizzy  and  defiant  egotist. 
Tf  he  won  his  way  by  disregarding  other  men,    liow  could 


22 

lie  learn  after  that  to  rei;ar(l  l!  cr.i?  He  had  only  one  lest 
of  rcspeet  for  others:  could  tliey  succeed  like  himself? 
He  overlooked  that  he  might  he  the  meanest  of  all  men, 
and  yet  succeed  on  account  of  that  meanness;  and  society 
overlooked  it  too.  Self-made  merely  meant  money-made; 
it  often  meant  un-made  in  everything  but  money. 

Xow  this  drill  in  hardship,  meanness  and  general  an- 
tagonism was  the  drill  of  a  slave,  and  we  Americans  of  this 
generation  are  all  descended  from  slaves.  Many  strange 
features  of  the  American  character  of  the  time  may  be 
traced  to  this  lineage, —the  decadence  of  liberty,  the  rise 
of  rank  reverence,  the  conscious  resignation  of  the  idea  of 
equality,  and  other  senile  attributes  in  which  slaves  and 
the  sons  of  slaves  libound. 

If  the  idea  of  self-made  men  were  carried  out  properly 
and  reasonably,  every  infant  would  be  conveyed  to  a  desert 
island,  and  left  there  to  grow  up  alone  and  make  itself  in 
full.  But  if  the  principle  of  child-care  is  valid,  if  education 
is  legitimate,  if  friendship  and  the  mutual  help  of  friendship 
are  defensible  factors  in  personal  development  and  success, 
then  all  social  assistance  that  can  be  rendered  to  the  mak- 
ing of  a  man  is  right,  and  each  man  of  such  rearing  will 
have  the  whole  strength  and  wealth  of  society  in  himself. 

VI.       THE    SLAVERY    OF   THE    WEALTHY. 

The  slavery  of  the  wealthy  demands  a  chapter.  It 
must  be  recognized  that  many  of  them  are  enormous  work- 
ers and  enormous  magazines  of  care.  Premature  age  is 
common  among  them,  it  is  the  business  man's  badge.  I 
have  no  sentiment  to  offer  them,  for  business  men  have 
abolished  sentiment,  and  I  should  be  merely  stretching  out 
the  hand  of  commiseration  to  an  heroic,  self-destroying 
grindstone.  Nevertheless,  the  most  frozen  scrutiny  of 
science  reports  that  the  position    of  the    wealthy    man    is 


pathetic.  Tlic  lHIL•^ti()ll  renardinjj  liitn  is,  uliat  is  lit.-  doint; 
it  all  for?  Is  he  a  machine,  and  is  liic  the  ihiuulcrinj^ 
revolution  of  wheels?  Is  he  in  a  dream,  and  carrying  on  this 
fantastical  industrial  revelry  as  a  sleep-walker?  The  nar- 
rowing of  consciousness  by  the  exclusion  of  all  l)ut  one 
motive  is  the  formula  for  destroyiii;^  men  and  producing 
decadents. 

The  most  deeply  pathetic  fact  of  all  is  that  S)  many 
good  men  of  the  business  world  do  not  want  to  give  them- 
.selves  a  living  offerinj;  to  the  soulless  Moloch  ot  mcihaiii- 
cal  affairs.  Life  is  worth  too  much  to  he  ground  into 
mansions  and  money.  That  man  is  a  caitiff  who  will  sell 
a  corpu.scle  of  his  good  blood  for  a  million  dollars.  Will 
the  Vanderbilts  breed  an  Abraham  Lincoln  if  they  rei'j^n  in 
haughty  republican  grandeur  a  thousand  years?  Their 
monopoly  may  prevent  the  birth  of  a  thousand  Lincolns  in 
other  spots,  but  in  the  evil  air  ol  iheir  milliijiis  never  one- 
can  be  conceived. 

A  man  may  he  a  very  big  fish  in  busine"-.s  and  yet  be 
shadowed  by  .some  larger  shark  who.se  stomach  he  will 
some  day  fill.  Most  of  the  prosper«)US  people  we  meet  on 
the  Street  have  the  air  of  debating  with  themselves  how 
they  will  feel  when  they  have  been  swallowed.  It  must  I  e 
a  fruitful  theme  for  wakeful  nights  and  realistic  dreams. 
And  when  the  sharks  have  made  their  meal,  the  whales  of 
industry  will  sit  down  to  a  banquet  of  fattened  and  pre- 
pared sharks.  It  is  one  of  those  situations  where  doubt 
does  not  enter.  Three-fourths  of  the  present  leatling  busi- 
ness men  would  be  safe  in  ordering  their  commercial  cof- 
fins, in  preparation  for  the  day  when  consolidated  capital 
will  Softly  chloroform  their  trade. 

It  must  sometimes  occur  even  to  the  most  infatuated 
rich  man  that  he  is  the  focus  of  the  portentous  popular  dis- 
satisfaction. Men  never  were  contented  with  monopolists, 
and  now  all  of  the  very  rich  are  monopolists.     The    wrath 


24 

of  the  whole  siin"eiing  nation  points  to  them.  No  prophet 
ever  said  more  plainly,  "thou  art  the  man."  All  clas.ses. 
wealthy  and  workers,  are  united  in  saying  to  the  monopo- 
list, thou  art  he.  What  gloomy  thoughts  a  man  might 
have  who  knew  that  the  majority  of  his  countrj'men  were 
coming  to  regard  him  as  the  curse  of  their  li\es  and  the 
pestilence  of  the  world.  Monopolists'  gains  have  been 
invariably,  in  all  times  and  under  all  circumstances  illegiti- 
mate gains;  hence,  if  the  monopolists  were  to  put  on  the 
crown  of  Ceasar  and  promulgate  their  ownership  of  what 
they  have  monopolized,  with  a  German  army  and  an  Kn- 
glish  navy  behind  them,  the  people  of  this  country  would 
not  believe. 

What  is  to  come  out  of  this  strong  and  rising  popular 
conviction?  The  stability  of  the  wealthy  is  decreasing 
every  day.  Bereaving  a  great  number  of  people  of  natural 
human  sentiments  is  an  iniquitous  thing,  but  it  is  also 
njudicious.  I  saw  a  man  go  up  to  a  garbage  wagon  this 
morning  and  take  therefrom  a  repulsive  lump  of  unrecog- 
nizable decay  and  eat  it.  This  is  the  way  street  dogs  with 
no  friends  or  owner  do,  but  when  strong  men  come  to  it! 
And  nameless  wealth  shedding  its  effulgence  over  the 
scene! 

It  is  itijudicious  to  put  men  through  such  demoralization 
as  will  eradicate  their  humaner  sense.  A  morning  paper 
describes  the  state  of  seige  to  which  cranks  have  reduced 
the  White  House  at  Washington.  "The  executive  man- 
sion is  well  guarded  by  trusty  men.  A  large  force  of 
watchmen,  including  police  officers,  is  on  duty  inside  the 
mansion  at  all  hours  night  and  day  and  a  continuous 
patrol  is  maintained,  by  local  police,  of  the  grounds  immedi- 
ately surrounding  the  mansion.-  -The  mansion  is  also  in 
direct  telegraphic  and  telephonic  communication  with 
police  headquarters,  military  posts  at  Washington  Barracks 
and  at  Fort  Myer,  Va.,  and  the   marine    barracks,  and   it 


25 

would  not  take  very  long  to  secure  a  heavy  detachment  of 
men  from  each  of  the  places  named. "  The  social  conditions 
must  indeed  be  grave  when  (hmgerous  characters  have  be- 
come so  numerous  and  bold  that  the  president  of  the  re- 
public has  to  be  protected  like  the  Russian  Czar.  In  the 
earlier  days  of  our  government,  equality  of  condition  and 
opportunity  gave  our  citizens  .something  else  to  think  about 
than  ass.issi'.'.ating  presidents. 

Eighteen  months  ap;o  there  was  said  to  be  a  plot  to 
blow  up  the  national  capitol  building,  with  both  houses  of 
Congrass  in  it.  The  Washington  "Post"  published  columns 
of  disclosures,  and  would  not  afterwards  abandon  its  asser- 
tions. Not  long  before  that  a  Cambridge,  Massachusetts, 
clergyman  had  publicly  announced  th  it  if  it  were  not  for 
his  christian  principles  and  the  cruelty  involved  he  should 
believe  the  best  thing  for  the  country  to  be  the  explosion 
of  a  hundre  I  tons  of  dynamite  in  the  Washington  capitol. 
This  was  in  view  of  the  national  sufiferin;^  which  C  )ngress 
would  not  attempt  to  alleviate. 

Men  are  made  insane    by    too    much   stirvition,    and 

the  head-;  of    other  men  who    are    not   starved,    are    often 

turned  by  the  sight  of  piercing  misery  set  in  the    gold    and 

diamonds  of  bewitching  luxury.     This  is  the  chemistry   of 

cranks.     And  if  hordes  of  men  are  to  be    starved    and    put 

upon  rations  of  gari)age,  there  will  be  so    many   cranks    in 

^he  country  before  long  that  every  wealthy  man's  residence 

will  have  to  be  an  arsenaland  guarded  like  the  white  house. 

'    y      At  Biddeford,  Maine,  a   mill    belonging    to    the    York 

1 1  'Corporation  has  just  been  blown  up,  and  it  is  supposed  that 

a  discharged  workman  caused  the  explosion.     It  took  ])lace 

on  Sunday  evening  at  an  hour    wlien    one    of   the    owners 

makes  a  weekly  inspection,  and  it  seems  that    the    attempt 

was  leveled  at  his  life.     To  lose  a  job  in  thc-se  times  is  often 

||  e<iuivalent    to    starvation,    sickness  and    death;    it   is  very 

many  times  the  breaking  up  of  family  security  and   happi- 


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Form  L9-.Series  4939 


PUTlLTvSIIRD    BY 

THE   SOCIETY    OF    AMERICAN   SOCIALISTS 

SAN  FRANCISCO,   CAL.,    FKBRUARY    I,    1896. 


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